Rufina Ivanovna Pukhova (russian: Руфина Ивановна Пухова; (1 September 1932 - 17 May 2021 ) was a Russian memoir writer. She was the last wife of

Kim Philby Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 191211 May 1988) was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring which had divulged British secr ...

, a

KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...

double agent who rose in rank through

British Intelligence The Government of the United Kingdom maintains intelligence agencies within three government departments, the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence. These agencies are responsible for collecting and analysing foreign and d ...

along with the

Cambridge Five The Cambridge Spy Ring was a ring of spies in the United Kingdom that passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and was active from the 1930s until at least into the early 1950s. None of the known members were ever prosecuted ...

. She met Philby through

George Blake George Blake ( Behar; 11 November 1922 – 26 December 2020) was a spy with Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and worked as a double agent for the Soviet Union. He became a communist and decided to work for the MGB while a pri ...

. Pukhova and Philby married in 1971.Philby,_Harold_Adrian_Russell_[Kim]_(1912–1988),_spy
by_Nigel_Clive_in_''Dictionary_of_National_Biography.html" ;"title="im] (1912–1988), spy">Philby, Harold Adrian Russell [Kim] (1912–1988), spy
by Nigel Clive in ''Dictionary of National Biography">im] (1912–1988), spy">Philby, Harold Adrian Russell [Kim] (1912–1988), spy
by Nigel Clive in ''Dictionary of National Biography'' online (accessed 11 November 2007) She is the author of ''The Private Life of Kim Philby: The Moscow Years'' (2000). Pukhova was born in Moscow to a Russian father and a Polish mother."odnb"

Early life

Before meeting

, Pukhova worked as a

copy editor Copy editing (also known as copyediting and manuscript editing) is the process of revising written material (copy) to improve readability and fitness, as well as ensuring that text is free of grammatical and factual errors. ''The Chicago Manual of ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

after surviving

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

.Dettmer, Jamie. “A Cold War Love Story.” Insight on the News 19, no. 24 (June 26, 2000): 24. She lived through

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

as well as the Cold War. It was not until Philby had

defected In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, changing sides in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, defection involves abandoning a person, ca ...

to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

that the two met.Philby, Rufina, Mikhail Lyubimov, and Hayden Peake. Private Life of Kim Philby: The Moscow Years. Fromm Internat., 1999.

Married life with Philby

The couple married in 1971. She was the fourth and final wife of Kim Philby. He was a drunkard through their early marriage, but he slowly gave up drinking to save their marriage. The couple lived in Moscow in an apartment located on the sixth floor, hence the title "Island on the Sixth Floor", another memoir written by Pukhova. The apartment was intricately hidden so as to deter the press after Philby's defection. They say that living with Philby was difficult; as well as being an alcoholic, he suffered from depression, sometimes self-harming. Pukhova helped him through it and made his life better after his defection. After Philby's controversial death in 1988, Pukhova fought against the rumours of suicide and held fast that he had died of a heart condition. She said to Helen Womack of ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'', "The suicide story is rubbish, to put it mildly". Rumours of Philby's suicide attempts were never confirmed.

Written works

Pukhova wrote two memoirs about her life with Philby. One, titled "Island on the Sixth Floor" was included in ''I Did It My Way'', a collection of works about

. It also included some autobiographical chapters by Philby titled "My Hidden War". She also wrote the memoir titled ''The Private Life of Kim Philby: The Moscow Years''. Also included in this book are some unpublished chapters from Philby's autobiography, a foreword by his friend Michael Bogdanov, and essays from

Mikhail Lyubimov Mikhail Petrovich Lyubimov (russian: Михаи́л Петро́вич Люби́мов; born 27 May 1934) is a Russian novelist and retired colonel in the KGB. He served as spymaster and head of the KGB stations in the United Kingdom and Denmar ...

and Hayden Peake. The book focuses mostly on the relationship between Pukhova and Philby and not his work as a double agent for the KGB. Others see Pukhova's 187-page memoir as unnecessary and quite boring in contrast to the rest of Kim Philby's life.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pukhova, Rufina 1932 births 2021 deaths Russian memoirists Russian women writers Women memoirists